Administrative/Biographical History
Gilead Baptist Church was organized before 1806 by Edward Turner. When the church entered the Tates Creek Association in 1806 it had 19 members. The church is located on Poosey Ridge Road (once called Goggins' Ferry Road) about four miles north of Kirksville. The Goggins family ran a ferry over the Kentucky River at the mouth of Silver Creek in 1797. Aid to the new church at Gilead came from Gilbert's Creek Baptist Church in Garrad county, one of the three first Baptist Churches in Kentucky. When Gilead joined the Tates Creek Association it joined the following churches: Tates Creek, Liberty, Mt. Nebo, and Bethel. A new church was built at Gilead in 1842 by the group known as United Baptists and it was replaced in 1892. The United Baptists were a merged group of Regular and Separate Baptists. Early pastors at Gilead were Nelson C. Alspaugh (1848), A.J. Daugherty (1859), James Prather (1842), James Kindred, John G. Pond (long time pastor until 1890), Rev. Johnson (1890), A.F. Pike, Jesse Tyree, Thomas Bronston, Turner Barnes, Moses Willis, and many more. In the 1890's a Rev. Kuykendall held a revival at Gilead at which time 100 were converted and baptized near the iron bridge over Silver Creek. Another great baptismal service of the church was held in Silver Creek in 1902. This information about the Gilead Baptist Church comes from a History of Four Churches by Forrest Calico, published in 1946.
